A Russian colonel went on trial yesterday for kidnapping and murdering an 18-year-old Chechen woman, the first member of the Russian forces prosecuted for human rights abuse since the war in Chechnya began.

Colonel Yury Budanov, commander of the 160th Tank Regiment, admitted killing Kheda Kungaeva, from Tangi Chu, but denied that it was murder.

Relatives of the dead girl, squeezed in beside army officers in the courtroom in the southern town of Rostov-on-Don, had little confidence that justice would be done.

Outside, a handful of Col Budanov's supporters protested against his trial, saying he was being sacrificed because the army wanted to be seen willing to prosecute officers.

While cautiously welcoming the trial, human rights groups remain critical of widespread Russian reluctance to investigate or prosecute troops for dozens of other alleged atrocities against civilians.

According to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, Kungaeva died at the end of a a drunken night last March when the colonel celebrated his daughter's birthday with fellow soldiers at Tangi Chu.

Sometime after midnight he and three others took an armoured personnel carrier, drove into the Kungaev family's front garden, walked into the house, and took Kheda away.

About two hours later, it is alleged, Col Budanov strangled her. She was buried, but her body was dug up and returned to her family two days later.

Col Budanov is alleged to have said that he detained Kungaeva because he thought she was a sniper who had killed some of his comrades. He claims that he lost his temper and strangled her during an interrogation. A medical examination of her body suggested that she had been raped, the press reported.

After the murder senior officers sought to make an example of Col Budanov and repeatedly and publicly accused him of rape and murder.

The Kungaeva family are angry that the rape charges were dropped.

The army portrayed Col Budanov's behaviour as "an exceptional example of wanton criminality by a serviceman," a Human Rights Watch spokesman said, but abduction rape and murder represented a pattern of crimes perpetrated by federal forces in Chechnya.

"If there is only this one trial ... then it would be not a step forward but just a show trial."

As the trial opened, reports of other alleged abuses by the Russian military continued to surface from Chechnya.

The Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, Alvaro Gil-Robles, who arrived in Chechnya yesterday, said he would try to investigate the claim by the journalist Anna Politkovskaya that Chechen villagers were being persecuted by Russian forces.

The bodies of 20 more Chechens were found in a mass grave yesterday in the deserted and ruined holiday village near the main Russian garrison at Khankala, outside the capital, Grozny. Thirty-six corpses have been unearthed since the weekend.

In a rare interview published yesterday, the Chechen independence leader Aslan Maskhadov called on the Russians to begin talks.

"Wars have to end at some point and this can only be done by talks," he said. Russian officials refuse to talk to the rebel leaders.